Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Mi Familia,

Que Pasa!! Can ya’ll
believe I've already been out a month? Crazy, huh? Yes you got the pictures!!
Dad, sweet new whip! How’s the cougar doing by the way? Have you
sold that old clunker yet? haha. And I was just thinking of you and
Webelos and how ya’ll were doing. Looks like ya’ll are having a blast! But you’re
still flying solo?! They’ll call someone soon though, I hope. Mom, the watch
still works, the plate on the bottom broke off and I can’t get it back on is
all. Thanks for mailing my board to Noah, I really appreciate it. Hang in there
Madre, you can do it!! And that’s so cool you guys are going to Nauvoo, Andy is
going to the Coast guard, and Jerry and Dana are moving to Chicago. That stinks
though, I haven’t even seen them yet, and Aunt Dana said she would bring me
cookies!! haha.

Alright, so yeah my Spanish
is getting better. I've been on two exchanges with the Spanish elders and that’s
helped out a lot, One of those was with elder Hansen who is 6 foot 10, dude is
a giant, we had a bunch of lessons planned but they all cancelled, so we ended
up meeting with a former in Oceanside and talked with him about his goats
or "chivos" haha, it was a good time, you have a lot of adventures on
your mission. Spanish work is so fun! They’re such nice and funny people. So
were still working on finding people. We mostly visit less actives and formers.
We had a ward activity that we hosted called "night with the
missionaries" that was a big hit, I had no hopes of anybody coming to it,
but we had a big crowd, it was fun, and we may have gotten some investigators
out of it. So that was good.

I went on another exchange
with one of the head honchos, Elder Lewis, who is one of our zone leaders. He
really opened my eyes to how much authority and power we have as missionaries as
well as how important the work is. We drove up to a curb and we saw some folks walking
down the street and he said "Elder, we need to talk to these people
right now!" I’m like, "what?!” like right now?!" So he jumps out
of the car and chases this woman down with her two kids and starts talking
to them and he told me to talk to the guy across the street, so I ran across
the street and stopped this guy walking his dog and talked to him about what we
believe in. It was pretty crazy!! haha I've never chased someone down like that
to talk to them before. Anyway he explained to me that there are three reasons
why we don’t contact people. Fear of man, fear of rejection, and laziness. And
he made me realize I’m not just out here in Cali just chillin. But I have a
duty and there is no reason to fear. And if you get over that fear you
will be so blessed and edified and the work will progress tenfold.

Well it’s that time
again, wish I could write more.

Love you guys, look out
for each other and stay true

-Elder Daniel

P.S. - When you guys
mail me anything make sure you put my first name as well because there is
another Elder Daniel in the mission!!